Security researchers have found major security flaws with smart watches parents have been buying to keep their children safe - and say parents who have one should throw it away.

Simple changes to coding which can be made with no specialist equipment allow anyone to access any watch - giving them all a child's personal information and picture as well as revealing their exact location and previous locations.

The hack even allows anyone to secretly listen in to all conversations and to contact the child via the watch.

The device, released in 2015 and previously sold via Amazon and eBay, uses GPS to allow a parent to track, contact and listen to their child.

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The researchers bought more units to test and found they were able to trigger remote listening functions, track the wearer and see their previous locations and set up alerts for when a child entered a particular location.

They could also trick the watchj into talking calls from any number - disguised as a call from the wearer's parent.

Mr Munro said: "Once a hacker has the parent's number, they could spoof a call to appear to come from it and the child would now think it's their mum or dad dialling.

"So they could leave a voice message or speak to the child to convince them to leave their house and go to a convenient location."

Using a different tool, Mr Munro said his team were able to see that about 14,000 MiSafes were still in active use.